quote [ In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court gave Ohio a victory Monday in a fight over the state's method for removing people from the voter rolls, a practice that civil rights groups said discourages minority turnout. At least a dozen other politically conservative states said they would adopt a similar practice if Ohio prevailed.

The Supreme Court got this one wrong. The right to vote is not 'use it or lose it,'" said Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters of the United States. "This decision will fuel the fire of voter suppressors across the country who want to make sure their chosen candidates win reelection, no matter what the voters say." ]

hellboy said @ 5:11am GMT on 12th June
It's a balance - the inconvenience of having entries in the voter database for people who have moved or died, and the danger of someone voting as a dead person or voting twice in different precincts, versus the danger of legitimate voters being deprived of their right to vote by being dropped from the voter database simply for skipping an election. The inconvenience is pretty minor, especially in these days of computer databases - maybe they print a few more pages than they actually need to - and the risk of voter fraud has been repeatedly overblown by Republicans (research has shown that actual voter fraud is extremely rare). But these two things are red herrings anyway, because the real intent behind laws like this is not to make bureaucracy more efficient or to ensure the security of elections (Republicans have never really cared about either of those issues), the real intent is to suppress voting. That does happen, it does work, and it's also the reason why Republicans are opposed to same-day registration, absentee ballots, and moving elections to the weekend or making election day a holiday - the Republicans gave up a long time ago on public service as a virtue and only care about winning at any cost, and they do better in elections if fewer poor people - the people most adversely affected by obstacles to voting - get the chance to vote. In short, Republicans aren't just opposed to Democrats, they're opposed to democracy (why not, the latter was named after the former). We no longer have a principled opposition in the US. Maybe we never did, but the US is a mango republic now.hellboy said @ 5:12am GMT on 12th June
It's a balance - the inconvenience of having entries in the voter database for people who have moved or died, and the danger of someone voting as a dead person or voting twice in different precincts, versus the danger of legitimate voters being deprived of their right to vote by being dropped from the voter database simply for skipping an election. The inconvenience is pretty minor, especially in these days of computer databases - maybe they print a few more pages than they actually need to - and the risk of voter fraud has been repeatedly overblown by Republicans (research has shown that actual voter fraud is extremely rare).

But these two things are red herrings anyway, because the real intent behind laws like this is not to make bureaucracy more efficient or to ensure the security of elections (Republicans have never really cared about either of those issues), the real intent is to suppress voting. That does happen, it does work, and it's also the reason why Republicans are opposed to same-day registration, absentee ballots, and moving elections to the weekend or making election day a holiday - the Republicans gave up a long time ago on public service as a virtue and only care about winning at any cost, and they do better in elections if fewer poor people - the people most adversely affected by obstacles to voting - get the chance to vote.

In short, Republicans aren't just opposed to Democrats, they're opposed to democracy (why not, the latter was named after the former). We no longer have a principled opposition in the US. Maybe we never did, but the US is a mango republic now. / Current Commenthellboy said @ 5:11am GMT on 12th June [Score:1 Insightful]
It's a balance - the inconvenience of having entries in the voter database for people who have moved or died, and the danger of someone voting as a dead person or voting twice in different precincts, versus the danger of legitimate voters being deprived of their right to vote by being dropped from the voter database simply for skipping an election. The inconvenience is pretty minor, especially in these days of computer databases - maybe they print a few more pages than they actually need to - and the risk of voter fraud has been repeatedly overblown by Republicans (research has shown that actual voter fraud is extremely rare).

But these two things are red herrings anyway, because the real intent behind laws like this is not to make bureaucracy more efficient or to ensure the security of elections (Republicans have never really cared about either of those issues), the real intent is to suppress voting. That does happen, it does work, and it's also the reason why Republicans are opposed to same-day registration, absentee ballots, and moving elections to the weekend or making election day a holiday - the Republicans gave up a long time ago on public service as a virtue and only care about winning at any cost, and they do better in elections if fewer poor people - the people most adversely affected by obstacles to voting - get the chance to vote.

In short, Republicans aren't just opposed to Democrats, they're opposed to democracy (why not, the latter was named after the former). We no longer have a principled opposition in the US. Maybe we never did, but the US is a mango republic now.